ok so this just happened like two hours ago and im still kind of annoyed. flying out of Tokyo Haneda heading back home and they pulled my carry on and took both my spare lipos. the drone itself and the one battery thats inside it were fine apparently but the two loose ones in the lipo bags got flagged. agent said something about watt hours but my japanese is basically zero and his english wasnt great either so i didnt fully understand what the limit was or if i was even over it.

they gave me a form but its all in japanese. ive still got my drone at least but now im down two batteries for the rest of the trip which honestly ruins the last few days i had planned. anyone dealt with this before and is there any way to like, appeal it or get them back or are they just gone

yeah theyre probably gone man, airport security almost never gives stuff back once its confiscated. the limit for lithium batteries on most japanese carriers and a lot of international ones is 100wh per battery without prior approval, anything between 100-160wh you usually need airline permission ahead of time. if your spares were like 4S 5000mah or higher they were probably over. sorry that sucks, happened to a buddy of mine in Seoul with a big capacity pack.

this is why i always check the exact wh printed on the battery label before i travel and screenshot the airline policy. its tedious but ive never had one taken. also some people carry a printed copy of the iata regulations to show agents bc sometimes the agents themselves dont actually know the rules and they just confiscate stuff to be safe which is incredibly frustrating